Hozark's Revenge

by Scott Baron

  They had stopped at three planets on the way. Each time at the request of Itzalla. She said it was to help her dial in her bearings, but after just the first layover, Demelza realized quite clearly that the woman simply wanted to sightsee under the guise of seeking further information from locals.

  What she also noted was that she would come back to the ship with new items after each new world. Nothing huge, nothing too flashy, but certainly things that were beyond her somewhat limited means. Itzalla, it seemed, was a bit of a thief as well.

  Demelza would have to keep her eyes on this one. And on her own ship as well. The situation was far from ideal.

  Finally they arrived on the hot, dusty planet with twin suns that also happened to line up with the other markings in the chart. It was the first time Itzalla showed no interest in sightseeing.

  “I hate the heat,” the woman said. “And I hate dust. You go on without me.”

  It made sense. With her rolls of skin, the heat would be miserable, and dust would gather and chafe. So Demelza made the solitary trek through the city that seemed to have the highest concentration of industrial trades, but not before pocketing her Drookonus and setting a few additional wards in place on her ship before heading out.

  It was not the biggest or most exciting city on the planet, but it was the most likely place to find a temple aimed at metalsmiths and ore miners. But as she surveyed the worn structures of the town, Demelza soon realized this inhospitable environment would have destroyed the temple ages ago.

  Yet those old orders tended to stick around once established, and there could still be a few residents around who might know something, anything, that would help her to her next destination. To the “Red Jewel.”

  “Excuse me,” she asked a woman selling a cold, tart-smelling beverage. “What is that drink you are selling?”

  “Trannis juice? You don’t know Trannis juice?” the woman said with barely hidden contempt for the stranger.

  “I am not from this system, and this is all new to me.”

  “I could tell,” the woman said with a snort, noting Demelza’s pale skin. “Wampeh, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t see many of your kind around here. Too bright. Too hot for you folk. You know, with the twin suns and all.”

  “The eyes of Orakis, I’m told. A most marvelous story.”

  The woman’s attitude shifted slightly. “You know about Orakis?”

  “Only a few stories I heard in the temple many years ago.”

  “The temple, you say?”

  “Yes,” Demelza replied, tracing the sigil found on the anvil in the magical frost on the drink container.

  The vendor’s attitude shifted immediately. “Well, I’m sure you’ll find our temple to be quite a sight. Most do.”

  That caught her attention. The temple was apparently still intact, much to her surprise.

  “That is why I stopped here. I was hoping to visit it before continuing my journey. But I see the elements have worn the buildings here greatly.”

  “Oh, our temple isn’t subject to that sort of thing. Head to the center of town and look for the markings. You’ll see them,” the woman said, then poured a glass of the tart beverage and handed it to Demelza.

  “Thank you so much. What do I owe you?”

  “It’s on the house. Welcome, Sister, and enjoy your stay.”

  Demelza graciously accepted the offering and headed farther into the network of squat buildings and narrow streets. All designed to provide shade from the blistering suns and protection from the sandy wind.

  At the center of town she saw what she was looking for, just as the woman had said. But it was not at all what she had expected.

  The structure was a single, tiny building with thick, worn walls. The magical warding on it was slowing its erosion, but not stopping it entirely. The heavy door, however, seemed in excellent condition. It was metal, polished bright by the winds. And upon it was a single marking. A sigil.

  Demelza strode to it and tested it for hidden traps or defenses. None were present. The metal was cool under her hand, despite the heat outside. It was an odd dichotomy, to say the least. She pushed the door and stepped into the cold air of the chamber.

  Immediately, she saw the reason for the temperature shift. This was not a temple, it was an access shaft to an old mine from which the cold breeze was flowing. She sniffed the air. There was the distinct smell of a subterranean water flow.

  Now it made sense. They had built the temple in the one location it would be safe from the elements. Where it would be comfortable to congregate. In a cool underground cavern. And in this inhospitable place, one with flowing water would provide precisely that.

  Demelza walked down the stairs hewn into the rock, the treads worn smooth by years of footfall upon them. A calm, magical illumination lit the way down and down. It was not a trek for the infirm or weak, but in this place, she guessed those didn’t survive long anyway.

  The chamber at the bottom of the stairs was not as large as she had imagined, given the vendor’s comments, but it certainly lived up to her description as impressive, though for different reasons.

  The cave’s domed ceiling was dotted with small spells of varying color and strength, their glow casting light down upon the chamber. It was beautiful and unlike anything she had ever seen before.

  In the center there was a brightly polished anvil, as she expected, but around it there were no columns or other decorations at all. At the base, however, was an ornate grill encircling it. The faint sound of water could be heard through it.

  Ah, the sacrifices bleed into the water. A way to pay homage to the lifeblood of this place, she realized.

  Demelza walked to the perimeter and slowly made a circuit of the cave. There were a fair number of people down there, resting and taking refreshment despite there being no temple services at the moment. As the coolest location in the city, most likely, the temple followers seemed to use it as a general gathering place as well as one of worship.

  It was clever, really. By its very nature it was an appealing place to congregate, and what better way to bring newcomers into the flock than by providing them comfortable refuge after a hard day’s work?

  She cast a small disguise spell, darkening her skin to match the locals’ sun-kissed complexion better, and continued her walk unnoted by the others. It was an ideal situation for gathering intelligence but for one thing. All of the markings on the walls were mere repetition of what she already had.

  They were ornate, and they were marvelously preserved among the beautiful works of art that had been painted and carved into the stone, but they offered her nothing new.

  She began to doubt Itzalla’s navigation, but this was exactly what the cryptic runes and sigils had said. Two suns, and locals with knowledge of the ancient deity Orakis, and a temple of the sect? It had to be the place.

  Demelza turned her attention again to the carvings in the ceiling. This particular temple had an illumination system of its own, so she did not need to risk drawing attention to herself by casting one above. But as she looked at the markings, it was clear they were essentially the same as the others.

  Frustrated, she allowed her mind to drift a moment, her eyes unfocusing slightly as she pondered what to do next. The slight flickering of the lights above was rather relaxing, she thought. Pleasant to stare at, not unlike––

  “Stars,” she gasped.

  Demelza carefully looked around. No one had seemed to notice her reaction. She turned her gaze back to the ceiling and ignored the markings, focusing instead on the lights dotting the dome. It was a star chart. And the twin suns above them were clear as day.

  More importantly, though there were many red dwarf stars in the galaxy, this particular chart only had a few marked. And only one of them glowed and flickered with any intensity.

  She smiled to herself and took careful note of her findings. She was willing to bet all of the coin in her ship that the red light marked the w
ay to her prize.

  Demelza locked the image in her mind as only a trained Ghalian could, then slowly and without drawing any attention to herself, made her way back to the stairway and ascended to the surface. She knew where she was going next. And hopefully it would be her final destination. Just a quick confirmation with Itzalla and they would be good to go.

  She stopped at the Trannis juice vendor and purchased a container to take with her, thanking her all the while and telling her that indeed, this temple put the others to shame.

  The woman was pleased to hear the words of praise from a sister from another world and bade her safe travels as Demelza walked back toward her ship.

  Itzalla was sprawled unconscious on the deck when she stepped inside her climate-controlled vessel. Demelza shook her head, disappointed, but not surprised. She then began removing all of the things her navigator had attempted to pilfer from her ship.

  The coin and small weapons were expected, but the woman had also stolen Demelza’s small vial of Nasturian she had acquired from an herbalist during the making of the cure for Happizano’s poisoning some time ago.

  Had Itzalla known what she had picked up, she would likely have put it back immediately, as the intense burn from just a drop of the extract could fell the strongest of men. And the magical properties of the plant only made countering the effect near impossible.

  She slid the vial of dangerous fluid into her pocket and continued retrieving her things from the slumbering woman. Once she had put all of her belongings back in their place, she slid the Drookonus into its receptacle and prepped for takeoff. Once that was done, she turned her attention to the woman on the floor.

  “Wake up,” she said coolly as she cast the rousing spell.

  “What? What happened?” Itzalla asked, still slightly dazed. “I must have fallen and hit my head.”

  Demelza merely stared at her with a disapproving glare. The navigator’s hands casually moved to her pockets. It was then she realized the game was up.

  “Look, I was only taking a few things to trade for some food.”

  “There is food in the ship.”

  “Well, uh, yeah, but I wanted to get you something nice. As a thank you, ya know?”

  “By selling my own possessions?”

  Itzalla could tell this line of reasoning was going to go nowhere so she shifted tack. “You know, that was really not cool of you. You could have really hurt someone. I mean, what kind of sick fuck puts stun wards inside their own ship?”

  Demelza smiled, her fangs slipping into full view. “This kind,” she said with an icy tone.

  Itzalla didn’t piss herself, and Demelza had to give her some credit for that. But the sight of those fangs, and the realization she’d just tried to rob a Wampeh Ghalian, turned any backbone she’d developed to putty.

  “Look, I’m sorry. Please don’t drain me.”

  “I have no intention of drinking from you,” Demelza said, walking closer.

  Itzalla instinctively backed up, trying to keep what little distance she could between herself and the deadly killer. Demelza continued forward until the woman had backed all the way to the ship’s external door.

  Demelza spoke the words and opened it, a little gust of hot air rushing in.

  “Out.”

  “What?”

  “Out.”

  Itzalla knew better than to argue and stepped out of the door and into the heat. It was looking like the Ghalian didn’t want to dirty her ship when she beat the thief, but Demelza stopped in the doorway and just stared at her. Finally, she spoke.

  “You shall live, Itzalla. But let this be a lesson to you.”

  Itzalla’s expression shifted from abject terror to confusion to a different kind of fear. One mixed with the horrible realization of what Demelza meant to do to her. She almost hoped for death. Not really, but sort of.

  “You’re going to leave me here?” she asked, gesturing to the blistering-hot city and its dusty breeze. “This is worse than where I was before!”

  Demelza remained impassive. “Again, let this be a lesson,” she said, then turned her back and sealed the door. Itzalla’s begging and pleading was entirely muted by the ship’s hull. A moment later Demelza lifted off and headed for space, minus a ridealong, her ship once again her own.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Demelza had made several jumps before arriving in the destination system plotted out on Itzalla’s rather messy star chart. The woman may have been talented at the navigation portion of her job, but where she excelled in that, she was profoundly lacking in organization.

  As a result, it took Demelza a solid hour to triple-check that she was interpreting the charts correctly before she finally engaged her first jump. She mused the annoying woman’s words just before casting the spell.

  “Do not rush yourself into a sun, Demelza,” she said with a little chuckle, then engaged her Drookonus.

  In the gaps between jumps she studied the charts and cryptic words surrounding them as the Drookonus cooled before its next use. Master Orkut had definitely clued her in to the right trail. Or, at least a trail she could follow, but she found herself wishing he had simply told her where to go.

  “The eyes of Orakis. Would it not have been just as easy to say, ‘Twin sun system’?” she mused. “And now, to the red jewel where the Quommus lays ‘beneath azure.’ That is not terribly helpful, Orkut. What ever did they mean by that?”

  She studied both her own and Itzalla’s notes, comparing them for any key or codebreaker to help her decipher the text. But the more she looked, the more apparent it was that nothing so simple would present itself. She would simply have to make her way to the red dwarf solar system and find her next step from there. Somehow.

  She had wondered for a while if it could have signified a blue sun from a nearby system, but as there were no such stars burning anywhere near where she was heading, that seemed highly unlikely. And besides, the markers had all aligned, leading her to this particular star in this particular system with its planets orbiting a red sun.

  Demelza felt the frustration rising as she went over the sigils and runes she had copied forward and back. It was only when she exited her final jump into that system and began her approach toward its center that the key to the riddle presented itself.

  “Of course,” she said as soon as her eyes fell upon the main inhabited world in the system.

  It was an oceanic planet, with over eighty percent of its mass covered by water. A beautiful, blue orb floating in the dark, circling the red jewel at the system’s center. The planet Galaloom.

  The connection hadn’t registered with her until she put the visual with the name. She had been to that world before many, many years ago, when she had first become a full-fledged Ghalian. It had been a simple job, putting an end to the boss of a particularly nasty mob faction.

  She had performed her task and left immediately, not once thinking back on that experience. Not until now. Now it all made sense.

  Galaloom’s surface was sparsely populated. A result of the limited dry land. But it had a thriving culture and robust population elsewhere. Beneath azure, as the clue had said. She was going to the planet’s underwater cities.

  They were not subaqueous in the truest sense of the meaning. There was no powered dome of magic dividing air space from ocean. But the many large caverns that dotted the undersea realm were close enough and certainly fit the description. And she now recalled from her recon on her assassination there that the world had once been home to a large mining culture before the planet had been stripped of most of its easily accessible riches.

  The miners had been rather well off, and it only made sense that they would go to great lengths to protect themselves from detection by those seeking to steal their wealth. And what better way to do so than to create the one thing that could keep their magical protections guarding their riches a secret? They created the Quommus.

  Of course, once the wealth ran out and the sect scattered and spread acros
s the stars, there would have been little use for such a thing. But if the temple remained intact, that would be its most likely hiding place.

  Whatever the hell it actually was.

  Demelza strode down the long path from the surface, the briny breeze of the undersea realm wafting up to her through the long, volcanic tube leading from the tiny spit of land to the sprawling city below.

  There had been a great many more cities at one point, before the great glacial thaw, but only those whose terrestrial accessways happened to be higher than the level of the rising sea had ultimately survived. And the main city of Magal had been one of them.

  Demelza had not visited this particular city on her prior trip, as her contract had been on a man located in a different, smaller, and far more feudal township a fair distance away. That place, under new leadership, also still existed beneath the waves, so far as she knew, though her former target no longer did.

  She continued down the long pathway for some time, passing a few others along the way, though it was mostly a solitary walk. Finally, she felt a larger gust of air as she neared an illuminated bend in the path. Rounding it, she saw that she had finally arrived at her destination. And it was magnificent.

  The stone dome appeared to have been cooled during some of the planet’s earliest volcanic activity, clashing with the sea around it and hardening into a solid shell. On top of that, more had been deposited until this place was created, safe and secure underneath both rock and water.

  A large bay lapped gently against the shore where several dozen specialized craft floated. The underwater tunnel providing them access was a long and deep enough one that only ships with some rather specialized casting could manage the trip. Space was one thing, but the pressures of the deep were another entirely. And this city, unlike so many others, was very, very deep.

  Demelza stepped off the path and into the magically illuminated streets and walkways, the constant glow given off from the spells anchored to the dome above providing a pleasant, warm light. It was early in the day, and the light was brighter accordingly, shifting to match that of the surface above, though never going completely dark at night.